1. Field of the Invention
An embodiment disclosed herein relates to a transfer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there are known a robot for transferring a thin work piece such as a semiconductor wafer or a liquid crystal panel, and an aligner device for aligning a thin work piece by detecting the orientation of the work piece. In the following description, the aligner device will be referred to as “substrate positioning device”.
It is sometimes the case that a plurality of robots is installed within a locally cleansed transfer chamber in order to increase a throughput. It is often the case that only one substrate positioning device is arranged within the transfer chamber even if a plurality of robots is installed within the transfer chamber.
There has been proposed a technology that controls a plurality of robots through the use of a robot control device for managing a transfer chamber and controlling the operation of a robot (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-249726).
In the conventional transfer system stated above, a plurality of robots is controlled by a single robot control device. This poses a problem in that a heavy load is applied to the robot control device.
In the event that a robot and a substrate positioning device are additionally installed, it is necessary to change a control method of a robot control device. Therefore, every system configuration needs to be customized.